The Rangers may be last in the NHL in scoring with their puny 2.22 goals-per-game attack as they enter tonight’s Garden match against Carolina, but GM Glen Sather’s immediate aim is on strengthening his team’s defense when the league roster freeze is lifted tomorrow at midnight.

Indeed, with 20-year-old Marc Staal finally beginning to act his age, and with expensive veterans Marek Malik and Paul Mara recently reduced to roles as scratches, it is believed the Blueshirts’ recent concentrated scouting of the Blue Jackets has been focused on putting together a deal to pry either veteran Adam Foote or top-four defenseman Rostislav Klesla out of Columbus.

The 36-year-old Foote, a physical presence the Rangers so obviously lack on the blue line, is on the final year of a three-year contract at $4.6M per that contains a no-trade clause he would have to waive in order to come to New York.

If willing, the two-time Cup-winner with Colorado will become one of the prime rentals on the market as the Feb. 26 deadline approaches. Hence, the Rangers’ attempt for a pre-emptive strike.

Klesla, the multi-dimensional fourth-overall selection in the 2000 Entry Draft who will turn 26 in March, is under contract through the 2009-10 season at $1.6M per.

The Blue Jackets, who have scored four goals in their last four games, are believed primarily interested in Petr Prucha. The Rangers, who have approximately $2.25M of full season cap space which to work, would likely look to send either Mara ($3M) or Malik ($2.5M) to Columbus in an expanded deal that could include either left wing Jason Chimera or right wing David Vyborny. Obtaining Klesla would almost certainly require much more going the other way.

The 28-year-old, 6-foot-2, 215-pound Chimera, drafted by Sather’s Oilers in 1997, has gone 17 straight games without scoring, so he’d obviously fit right in on Broadway. Earning $875,000, he’s eligible for unrestricted free agency this summer.

Vyborny, who will turn 33 next month and is also an impending unrestricted free agent, was drafted by Sather’s Oilers in 1993. The 5-10 Czech native, who has scored two goals in 28 matches, played the final two games before the Christmas break after spending three weeks on IR with a groin injury. He’s earning $2.2M.

Regardless of whether they can create a match with Columbus, whose first-year GM Scott Howson was originally hired for a management position by Sather’s Oilers in 1994, the Rangers have no long-term intention of carrying either Mara or Malik as their seventh defenseman.

Each carries too much of a cap hit to be a spare.

Mara, scratched on Sunday after Malik had been a scratch in six of the previous seven, has apparently lost his spot on the second power-play unit despite having the team’s heaviest shot from the point. Mara, who finished tied for 11th in the league in defensemen PP scoring (8-21-29) two years ago for Phoenix, has played a total of 43 PP seconds in his last eight games.

*

Blueshirts are 2-6-2 in last 10, a stretch that began with a Dec. 3, 4-0 loss at the Garden to the Canes.